Three dimensional animation tool kits are available that provide a set of frame creation tools for animators in the fields of computer or video game, special effects and commercial advertising production. Realistic renderings are intensive in data processing, as they use some version of the well-known and complex Navier-Stokes formulae to calculate the time derivatives that are involved in conventional fluid dynamics applications. Such a conventional approach to 3D animation is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,641 to da Vitoria Lobo, et al. entitled 3D REALTIME FLUID ANIMATION BY NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS, issued Jul. 26, 1996. Depending upon the required pixel resolution and frame size, renderings of 3D fluid animation often suffers, ironically, from a lack of fluidity of motion resulting from an undesirably low frame speed, resulting in an undesirably flickering or jerky, and thus unrealistic, rendering. Increasing the processor speed, of course, or increasing the number of processors solving the Navier-Stokes in parallel may result in an adequate rendering, but at greatly increased cost.
The 3D Studio MAX.RTM. product provides a rudimentary fluid mechanics animation tool, but the tool renders only an unrealistic wave in response to a predefined warp function. Moreover, the 3D Studio MAX.RTM. product does not provide the capability to place and optionally move an object in the fluid body context and to have the two interact. It is believed that the 3D Studio MAX.RTM. product does not provide realistic fluid dynamics and object interaction because it has been assumed to this time, as taught by the above patent, that solution of the Navier-Stokes equations was required, and imposed a prohibitive processing overhead and associated cost.